Exterior Door Swing Direction

If you live in a snowy environment opening the exterior door outward will be very difficult if there is a large amount of snow against it.

Exterior door swing direction.

Door swing direction is an important piece of information when you re buying a new interior or exterior door for your home. You ll want the door to allow the most open space in the room when the door is open. After you determine door swing direction you can use the above method to determine the hand of the door. Watch ask this old house carpenter nathan gilbert as he helps general contractor tom silva change the swing of an entry door.

An inward opening door should swing in the direction needed to provide adequate passage. We install doors that open from the garage into the house on either side of the frame. Slightly different specifications from interior doors. Since garage doors are an exit we would install the doors to open in the path of least resistance.

Determine what hand your door is. Ask this old house carpenter nathan gilbert helps general contractor tom silva change the swing of an entry door subscribe to this old house. If there is a fire or explosion that occurs an outward swinging door could. Generally interior doors will swing into the room opening towards the nearest perpendicular wall in the room.

When the door opens toward you and the knob is on the left hand side it is a left hand inswing door. The design of the room typically determines the left or right swing designation for doors. Learn door swing direction for properly choosing the correct door for your room. You are standing inside the house.

Changing your door from a right hand swing to a left hand swing can be a fairly easy task as long as it s the same height on both sides and you re okay with the inside face of the door becoming the outer face. In order to determine your door swing direction by using the diagram shown above imagine the square box is the room. View the diagram to learn what hand your door is. If it bumps or blocks passage because of a wall barrier or other object when you open it such as a toilet or cabinet the door should swing in the opposite direction.

If the exterior door swings outward it could catch the wind on a windy day and basically get pulled away from your hand and possibly bang into something. See the picture for a visual reference. Safety is the critical issue when deciding the swing direction. Now a good rule of thumb is that you want the handle of the screen door to be on the same side as the entry door.

To order the correct exterior door you need to know both the desired handing and whether it is inswing or outswing.